Hi everyone, this is Deb from Dying to Be Found. Before we get started, I just wanted to say that
episodes contain disturbing discussions on harmful acts and crimes against animals and or humankind.
Recordings are not intended for young or sensitive audiences due to the content nature of this
podcast. Listener discretion is strongly advised.
Hey everybody, this is Deb. And this is Beth. And we want to welcome you to episode 15 of Dying
to Be Found. And this is a show that is left open to the interpretation of our listeners. If you have
a story that you would like us to cover, please visit our website at DyingToBeFound.com, spelled
just like you see on our logo, or you can email us at Dying the number two, the letter B found
at gmail.com. Beth, how are you today? I'm doing great. How about you? I'm doing great too. I'm
excited to talk about this story. We're going to be talking about Elizabeth Smart today. She's the
14 year old girl who beat the odds when she was abducted from her home in the middle of the night
back in 2002. Do you remember the story, Beth? Very well, very well. And I followed it. So I'm
very glad that you are, you approached this story and I'm very looking forward to listening to what
you have to tell me. It looks like that this is going to be a three parter. Wow, you must have
found a lot of information. There is a ton of information and I feel like I really need to do
this justice for the family, for Elizabeth. Yes. So that's really all I know. If we get it into two
parts, then I hope everybody can keep following along, but we'll see when we get there, I guess.
All right. Okay. Anything else you want to talk about? Not today. I'm pretty quiet. Okay. We are
going to jump in because there is a lot of information to talk about. And so let's just
start in 2002, the Smart family resided in Salt Lake City, Utah. Ed and Lois Smart were very busy
keeping up with six children, Beth. Wow. I couldn't imagine that is a lot. I go see our sister
Kathy and she's got five kids and woo, you got to do that home alone and count the heads at all times.
That's the best way I could keep up with the nieces and nephews. I know. I have to tell you
something funny here though. When I lived on Prince Edward Island, I worked with a girl. I might have
mentioned this before. She was the oldest of 15 and her husband was the youngest of 16. Holy cow.
Families were very big back then. Yeah. That's beautiful. I don't know what to say. That's,
I can't imagine even having six kids, let alone the amount that you just talked about. Wow. All
right. Let's talk about the Smarts. Lois and Ed had four boys and two girls. They were Andrew,
Elizabeth, Charles, Edward, Mary Catherine, and William Smart. Elizabeth was the second oldest
child to Ed and Lois and was born on November 3rd, 1987. The Smarts were and still are active
members of the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-day Saints, also known as Mormons. And they resided in
the Federal Heights suburbs of Salt Lake City, Utah. Well, early summer of 2002, the Smart family
was very busy attending to a family member's death. Lois's dad had just passed away. So she
was dealing with that in addition to end of school events with her kids. And Elizabeth played the
harp. So there were concerts along with other activities that her siblings were also involved
in. So Lois recalls that on June 4th of 2002, she was cooking dinner. And of course she had a lot on
her mind. Her dad just passed away and she burnt some potatoes that were on the stove. Well,
she cracked open a window in the kitchen to let the smoke out and didn't give it another thought.
I mean, I know we've all done that. My fire alarm for some reason in my house just likes to go off
anytime I turn on the oven. So I always open that back door to make sure that the air's flowing and
I don't get a lot of smoke in the kitchen. So how about you? We don't really have much smoke.
Oh, that's good. You must be a better cook than me. I'll do most of the cooking.
I'm going to give a little timeline of events as we go along. On June 5th of 2002,
when Elizabeth was 14 years old, she was abducted from her home in the middle of the night. Like I
had mentioned at the very beginning. Now this happened to be the night that Elizabeth's mother
cracked that window open in the kitchen because she burnt the potatoes. Elizabeth's sister,
Mary Catherine went to her parents' room somewhere between 2 AM and 2.30 in the morning to say that
someone took Elizabeth. Mary Catherine and Elizabeth shared a room so they were in close spaces
and Mary Catherine just witnessed the whole thing. Elizabeth's parents immediately got out of bed and
began looking around the house. Lois turned on every light inside the house as they began searching.
This is when they went to the kitchen and discovered that the window that Lois had opened
earlier while the screen had been cut open. Wow. Yep. So the family and the neighborhood
began looking for Elizabeth within 15 minutes of her disappearing. And during the search,
two of Elizabeth's brothers, Ed Jr. and Andrew, were awakened by their mothers wailing and distress
over Elizabeth going missing. I can only imagine how distraught she was, Beth. Oh, for sure. Oh my
gosh. Can you imagine? No, not at all. But Elizabeth's younger sister, Mary Catherine,
told her parents point blank, you're not going to find her. Someone took her. And so that's kind of
what they went on when this whole ordeal started. So of course the police were called and when they
arrived, they began asking Mary Catherine questions about what happened because she seemed to be the
only eyewitness to the ordeal. Understandable. It's two o'clock in the morning. I don't, I think
we've said this before. I'm a hard sleeper. You're a hard sleeper. I would not wake up to any of this.
No. Detective Corey Lyman started looking around and found that the point of entry where the
intruder came into the house was very high up on the ground. So the kitchen was overlooking the yard,
but whoever entered, a couple of things had to have happened. They had to have climbed up on
something to enter the house. And in this instance, they found some chairs piled up at the bottom of
that window, just outside the kitchen. And the window only had a 12 inch opening. So he really
had to squeeze his way in whoever this person was. Oh my gosh. Initially the smarts home was never
sectioned off at all whatsoever by the police. So it was not immediately treated as a crime scene.
This just means Beth, that people in the neighborhood were coming and going because I
just told you that the entire neighborhood was looking for Elizabeth within 15 minutes
and family members, I'm sure were called as well. So a lot of people were coming in and out and
nothing was ever taped off to preserve the crime scene. So that was pretty much mistake number one.
In the documentaries that I was watching, detectives stated that whoever worked the
graveyard shift was usually assigned to the young and inexperienced law enforcement. So this may have
been the case as to why the house was not roped off with crime scene tape. So basically the entire
house became contaminated beyond all hope. And according to crime scene investigators,
they were not able to process the house like they should have when following normal protocols.
So that was a huge mistake from the very beginning. Yes. Now I had mentioned that Mary Katherine was
questioned as an eyewitness. Well, she was only nine years old at the time when Elizabeth was
abducted. And again, Elizabeth was 14. So she was a few years older. Not only did she share that
bedroom with Elizabeth, but they also shared a bed. Mary Katherine was the only witness to see what
had happened. And she was able to account what the man said to Elizabeth while she was laying right
next to her. The man was heard saying, if you scream, I'll shoot you. But if you don't, I won't
harm you. It was really unclear as if this were directed towards Elizabeth or Mary Katherine,
but that was just a direct quote coming from the abductor and what he had said when Mary Katherine
was close by. At no point did Mary Katherine waver from her eyewitness statements the whole time that
she was interviewed, even at the age of nine. So I'm trying to think back. What grade are you in?
What are you really doing in your life? Are you really thinking about anything besides playing
after school with your friends? I suppose it really depends on what your activities are and all that.
And of course, your intellectual level, I guess. Yes. Yep. So at age nine, Beth, she was very adamant
of what she heard and what she saw. And she did not waver from any of that. Well, Mary Katherine
mentioned that the voice of the intruder sounded very familiar. Now this in itself sounds very
familiar because we just covered a case exactly like this. Yes. But being nine years old, Mary
Katherine could not place where she had heard it from. There are a couple of things that I mentioned
at the very beginning of the story. I kind of want to get back to Ed and Lois. Number one, I mentioned
that the Smarts came from a very large family. Well, Ed had two brothers that he was very close
to. Their names were Tom and Edward. Now, Tom had worked for a local news station in the past and
was able to set up a news conference within hours of Elizabeth's abduction. The news media had picked
up on the story very quickly. So Ed was able to get the news out that night. Tom even attempted
to get Elizabeth's picture out into the news media and the internet, but he was told he had to wait
three hours. Why? I guess that goes along the lines, Beth, of what we've talked about several times
with how you have to wait that 24 hours because people are adults. They can always come back. But
in the case of a minor, I'm not really sure why you would have to wait three hours. Possibly because
not speaking from experience, but there might've been a time or two that I have snuck out of the
house in my life, but I've always returned. Let's put it that way. Oh, I got you. Maybe that's why
you had to wait the three hours because kids will be kids. They'll sneak out every now and then.
Yes. Yeah. But one statistic that I pulled up that is a little disturbing with waiting that three
hours is that 65% of fatalities like this occur within the first three hours. And again, that goes
back to the story we just finished. So remember that Elizabeth originally went missing somewhere,
I'm going to say 2.30 in the morning. Right. And the news crew arrived somewhere around 6.30
in the morning. That would be that three hour window. It's important to know too that at this
time, the Smart Family had very little sleep to go on since this ordeal began. So they have been up
since 2.30 in the morning looking through the neighborhood and just looking everywhere for
Elizabeth at this point. And when the news media pulled up, you know they're going to keep them up
for hours because they're going to want to try to get as much information as possible. Right?
Yes, exactly. Yep. Now I had mentioned that the crime scene had been contaminated beyond repair
since the house had not been roped off with crime scene tape. And on June 6th, by 10 o'clock in the
morning, this would be day two now. So a whole day has passed. At 10 o'clock in the morning on June 6th,
search parties were already forming to sweep the area surrounding the Smarts home. So many
community members came forward to volunteer that they had somewhere between 1,800 and 2,000 actively
looking in on the search just after this story broke. There were bikers, there were housewives,
students, neighbors, everybody was joining in on this search for Elizabeth. And even CNN aired a
story with Larry King Live about Elizabeth's abduction. So you know this story had to be
getting a lot of coverage. You had just mentioned you followed it. I know I followed it. Yes. And
there was just a ton of coverage. All family members were eventually taken to the police station
in separate cars, including Lois, Mary Katherine, and her two brothers. Everyone continued to be
separated once they arrived at the police station. I kind of figured, yeah, that makes sense because
police officers know what they're doing. They're not going to keep family members all together
because of innocent or not. I'm not saying anybody's innocent. I'm not saying anybody's guilty
here, but innocent or not, you know, the police are going to separate everybody so that they can't
get one story. Well, they, the police originally thought that something went down inside that house
and all the family members were covering something up. That kind of sounds like the
Jean-Bernier Ramsey case. So that's kind of the direction that the police were going. They didn't
want the family members coming up with stories for each other, just in case something was going on
and they were trying to do a cover up. They theorized that the Smart family was concocting
a ransom motive to get themselves out of debt. Now in the research that I performed on this,
I did not find one article stating that the Smarts were in debt. I don't have anything in
my notes that showed that they would have even tried to pursue that motive at all. Well, eventually
the FBI was called in and they determined that Elizabeth was chosen by her abductor. According
to an FBI profiler, Elizabeth did not have a high sequence of traits to place her into the category
of being abducted. Let me give you an example here. So she's 14 years old, Beth. What do 14
year olds usually do? Get together in groups and hang out all over. Absolutely. I know I was doing
that. I loved the roller rink when I was 14 years old. I was down there every weekend hanging out
with my friends, but she didn't hang out at the mall. Now internet was really becoming popular
at this time. Remember it's 2002. She didn't even frequent the internet chat rooms. She was a pretty
well balanced 14 year old girl. She carried a strong faith. She enjoyed horses and she played
the harp. Gosh, Beth, that's an amazing talent to be 14 years old and be able to play the harp.
Yeah. She sounds like she really has her head on her shoulders.
So as the search continued by day three, Ed was admitted to the hospital. He was exhausted to the
point of collapse. He was going without sleep. I'm sure he had a ton of people that were coming to
visit him. I had mentioned there were probably around 2000 volunteers. So you know, he had to
have been interacting with a lot of people in that time span. Well, his bishop came to the hospital
to give him a blessing and he basically told Ed that he needed to get up and do whatever he needed
to do. So basically Ed went home, did what his bishop told him to do. He was taking care of
business. He took control of the situation and his family members really stuck by him because as we
go on, you'll see how close and supportive everyone is of each other trying to find Elizabeth at all
costs. Right. Yeah. Well, Ed and his two brothers, David and Tom were brought in by the FBI to
conduct polygraph tests just after five days with no sleep. I kind of want to dig into this portion
just a little bit because Beth, news got out to the media that one of the family members had failed
their polygraph. Polygraphs we know are not admissible in court. We had talked about that
very briefly in our last episode and you were talking about how almost unfair it is to put
people through these interrogations for hours upon end. Well, here's my thoughts on polygraphs.
I know there are many people that know how to lie and get away with it. I've heard where you can
bite your tongue, curl your toes. There are many ways of distorting the truth. So polygraphs don't
always make sense in every situation. You're right. And in this situation, I have to agree with you on
that because Tom said that he was hooked up to a polygraph machine for eight hours. Now remember
Beth, that he had just gone five days without any sleep. Then he's hooked up to this polygraph,
which lasted another eight hours. And he himself said in one of the interviews that they were
asking questions. I'm not going to say they're leading questions, Beth, but I can see how when
somebody might be told that they're being deceptive and these are what, yes or no questions. Tom was
being asked questions like, have you ever told a lie? Yeah. Okay. So, I mean, Beth, have you ever
told a lie? Oh yes. Yeah. As have I. That is human nature to tell at least a white lie, right? Okay.
So let's talk about white lies for a moment. You have a habitual liar. You have little white lies.
Okay. If they're going to ask a basic question, like, have you ever lied? What are you supposed
to say to that? Well, you want, you're torn because you want to say the truth, yet you want to lie.
A little white lie. Yeah. Well, he didn't know how to answer that because just like you and me,
Beth, we've told a lie and I mean, we can go in circles on this conversation. He did give an
example. He told his wife one time that he didn't like her hair. Beth, have you ever been, had anybody
tell you that they didn't like your haircut? When I asked and I really insisted, yes.
Now, what was your reaction? I didn't get ticked off, but I was shocked and hurt. I was very hurt.
Okay. I'm going to say your mannerisms probably changed for a minute, wouldn't they? Yes.
Absolutely. So adamantly, you're saying that your temperament changed. Okay. So Tom told his wife
one day that he didn't like her hair. Well, based on her temperament and her reaction,
he basically said in the interview that he lied to her ever since. Yes, dear, your hair, it looks
lovely today. Okay. Little white lie, right? Yes. So we're getting back to this. Have you ever told
a lie? How are you supposed to answer that when you're hooked up to a polygraph with no sleep?
Exactly. That's the big question. And so that's a great example as to why polygraphs are inadmissible
in court. I mean, it's just basically how the questions were then that you can go in so many
different directions. To me, I don't think that they set him up to come out as deceptive, but
that's how it turned out based on how the question was worded. This goes back to what I mentioned in
the last episode about how the suspect is grilled for hours and hours, and then they'll end up
breaking down and just telling the police whatever they want to hear just to get done and over with.
Absolutely. Yes. Those false confessions. Yes. Yes. I completely agree with that. Well, Tom also
stated that during this polygraph session, he basically had a two hour stare down with the
police officers because they were not providing any answers to him. And his thoughts were, well,
whatever Elizabeth is going through right now, I'm going to go through this with her and I will do
everything that it takes to get her home. So he's just basically staring at the police officers,
not giving them answers because they weren't giving him answers. And that kind of went on
for a little while. I'm sure that everybody was getting a little bit frustrated here. Yes.
So in the meantime, the FBI also developed a profile on Elizabeth's abductor. I had mentioned
that Elizabeth was chosen. Well, special agent Mick Fennerty profile the abductor to have the
following characteristics. First of all, they hypothesized that this was a sex crime because
obviously she was taken in the middle of the night and they also profiled the perpetrator as a white
male between the age of 25 and 55. And then they also deduced that he was a burglar, obviously with
the way that he broke into the house. They compiled a list of any person who came to work at the smarts
house at any time, which consisted of over 60 contractors. I don't know if you've seen the house
that they lived in Beth, but it's beautiful and very large. It's kind of set within trees, but I
can imagine that for the any work that needed to be done on that house, they would always have at
least one or two contractors there because it was a pretty large house. Sounds nice. Well, one of the
people on this list, his name was Richard Reese and the smarts considered him to always be friendly
and engaging amongst the family members. Whenever he was on the premises, he would be cordial and
chatty and anytime that he was working at their house. Well, Ed was not aware that Richard had a
criminal record nor was he aware of the fact that he would break into the house in the night while
the smarts were sleeping. So he was nice and cordial during the day, but he was known to break
into their house to steal things while they were sleeping. That's crazy. Well, Mary Catherine,
Elizabeth's sister had seen Richard on the news and questioned why he was on TV because he was a
nice guy. She actually told her parents though, that it was not Richard who took Elizabeth.
Reese's wife also provided him with a solid alibi and Beth, he passed a polygraph test.
Now the police identified Reese as a career criminal, but in fact, he was in jail at the
time that he was identified as the main suspect of Elizabeth's disappearance. Reese had a criminal
record of burglary and had even attempted to kill a police officer during a pharmacy robbery
at some point. So police began to question Mary Catherine's ability to even be an eyewitness
because she could not make a direct connection to Richard Reese from the night that Elizabeth
disappeared. So it sounds to me like they wanted Reese to be the one, right? Right. Scapegoat again.
Hmm. There you go. Well, on August 3rd of 2002, Reese suffered a medical emergency
and possibly a brain aneurysm while he was in police custody because Beth, if you have seen
any of the videos of his police interrogations, to me, I did not feel like he would have been
involved in this. He was very adamant that he was innocent. He went nowhere near that girl.
And he was just visibly getting upset just from the police questioning him and he's maintaining
his innocence. So he did suffer a medical emergency and police just continued to keep him as their
prime suspect, even though the entire time while he was being interrogated, he never once said that
he did anything to Elizabeth. Well, Richard ended up being placed on life support and died three days
later. That's sad. Yeah. Well, the sadder part is that the police would not let Richard's wife see
him while he was in the hospital because they did end up admitting that Reese just wasn't smart
enough to pull anything like that off. Oh, that's too bad. Well, during the same month in August of
2002, just eight weeks after Elizabeth disappeared, someone ended up breaking into her cousin's house
at 2 30 in the morning, Beth. That is really eerie. Exact same time. And related to Elizabeth. Yes.
Well, Elizabeth's uncle, Stephen Wright, heard a loud crash that night. And when the police got
there, they had found two chairs piled up back to back just like they saw over at Elizabeth's house
when she was abducted. No. Yep. And the police felt that because of the situation, it had to be a
copycat. Well, it doesn't have to be a copycat. I mean, we're talking about the same family and
I don't think it's a copycat. Do you think it's too much of a coincidence though? Yes, that I do.
Well, the police thought it was a copycat, but the family believed that it was the same person
that broke in to take Elizabeth. And I can understand that for sure. Yeah, that's what I
would guess too. All right. So we are rolling up to day 90 in September of 2002. Police continued
to follow hundreds of leads, including motorcycle gangs, white collar crime, psychic leads,
devil worshipers, sex crimes, internet predators, and all of these leads added up to about 150 per
hour. Wow. So 90 days in Beth, they had over 39,000 leads that they had to follow with how big was the
police force in Salt Lake City, Utah. Yeah, that's a great number, isn't it? I don't know if they
brought the 2000 volunteers in to help them with this, but I'm sure they could only do so much.
Right. Can we talk about psychic leads for a moment? I would love to. Yeah. What are your
thoughts on psychic? I believe Beth, to a certain extent that people have that, would you call it a
sixth sense? I don't think it's a sixth sense. I'm a full believer. I did see a psychic and
when it was shortly after dad passed away and I wanted to know if he was around, but without
saying anything, she said, well, right now there's a man here and he's rubbing his head.
Wow. And I thought to myself, oh my gosh, or as my dad would say, good golly, good golly,
because my father did have a bald head and he had a habit of putting his hand on his head and rubbing
his head. Oh my gosh. And he said through the medium that he was sorry that he didn't have
enough money for us girls. He knew we were all in need at the time. Oh. And I felt bad for that.
And, but it was a very interesting experience. Well, I would be interested in going one day.
That would be kind of one of those things. You see the sign for these people and then do you ever
really stop? I go to ones that are reputable. This one lady, the reason I went to her because she had
a office right on the downtown strip. And if she was paying for an office and if she was there for
her regulars, you know, she had to be good. Yeah, you're right. You have a point. I'll have to check
that out one time. I've never done it. All right. So we're going to get to the eyewitness encounters.
Not long after all of these leads started coming in, one of the Smarts neighbors was out on a bike
trail in some woods just behind the neighborhood. I had mentioned a couple of minutes ago that the
Smarts house was surrounded in trees. And so they had a bike trail that kind of ran around the
neighborhood. And I feel like it was an area that a lot of people could go hiking or biking into the
woods. Now, Mike saw a man come out of the woods at some point in time. This was 90 days later after
Elizabeth's abduction. He had seen a man come out of the woods with two women trailing him. In the
future, as we talk about the people that came out the woods, I'm actually going to say the trio,
because there were three people, I just wanted to kind of set that up. And they were seen pretty
frequently amongst eyewitnesses around town on any given day from that day forward. The trio was
always wearing full robes. And the man had a very bushy beard while the women were wearing veils
over their faces. Not something that you normally see every day on the streets. Another eyewitness
saw the same man who he dubbed as Joseph just walking around town with the two women that wore
the veils. At some point, this eyewitness made eye contact with the younger of the two women
and all he could say when he saw her was that her eyes looked very sad. A third eyewitness saw
the same trio out at a buffet style restaurant one night. And I guess at some point, obviously,
if they're going to be eating dinner, they had to lift their veils. Well, this eyewitness stated
that the younger female had to be a teenager. I am not sure at this point in time, how much
news coverage this story is getting. I mean, it's been out there for 90 days now, but it's just
something that maybe people don't think about absolutely every day. And maybe the sightings
of these individuals, people weren't quite connecting the dots yet. On October 12,
just four months after Elizabeth's abductions, authorities started to give up hope that they
would ever see Elizabeth alive because there has been no activity. They were not able to ever really
make any clear cut case on this. But, but that same day, Elizabeth's sister, Mary Catherine,
had come to her dad with an epitome that she believed that she knew who the kidnapper was.
So, wow, yeah, she's just doing her thing being a typical nine year old girl. And she all of a
sudden had a memory. So she was just reading a book when the memory of this man just took over
and she's like, Oh, I know who it is. So she came to Ed and told him dad, the name of the man that
took Elizabeth, his name is Emmanuel. Well, Emmanuel was a homeless preacher that the smarts
had hired for handiwork around the house just a few months earlier. Mary Catherine specifically
told her dad, dad, it was that man that came to help on the roof. It was that homeless man
from downtown. So I kind of want to back this up because Catherine approaches her dad four months
after Elizabeth's abduction, because she just had this memory and backing up to Thanksgiving week
of 2001. That was somewhere around six and a half months before Elizabeth was abducted. I kind of
want to tell you this little story for just a minute because then it's going to all add up.
Well, I had told you that Lois and Ed had six kids, right? Right. So they were out shopping one day,
they were downtown in the Salt Lake area. They're basically doing their thing shopping for school
clothes. And since the kids had so many different interests going on, well, Lois let the boys
go pick out some clothes on their own in one area of the mall that they had gone to. And she just
stayed with the girls. One of Elizabeth's brothers came back and told their mother that there was a
man asking about work. So apparently they crossed paths when they separated, right? Right. Lois ended
up making contact with this guy and gave him $5 in this conversation. Well, she mentioned that they
did need some work done at their house. So she went home to talk to Ed about it. And Lois had asked
the guy's name when she was leaving town and he had mentioned that his name was Emmanuel. Ed stated
that both Mary Catherine and Elizabeth had probably five minutes interaction with Emmanuel one day
when he did end up coming to the house to help work on the roof. So they probably came in off
the school bus, headed up to do their thing in their room and probably made contact with this
guy, Emmanuel for a total of five minutes, Beth. Wow. Only five. Yep. And Ed had said that he
had given Emmanuel several days work, but he only showed up that very first day and did not return
after that. But in the span of time though, you have to know that Emmanuel was probably inside
the house, maybe taking a look around. And of course then at that point he may have known where
all the windows and doors were. Exactly. Now Mary Catherine was interviewed again where she told the
police that she had seen Emmanuel out in the streets, just as several eyewitnesses had already
said the same thing. So while they were out in the boat, she saw him out in the streets, a street
preacher. And she also thought that Emmanuel saw her and Elizabeth going up to their room the day
that he had come to their house. So police took all this information with a grain of salt because
remember I had told you that their number one suspect was Richard Reese. They continued to be
skeptical of Mary Catherine, one because of her age and two, she was not following the line of who
they thought the suspect was. And Emmanuel was not even on their list of subcontractors or contractors
that had come to the Smarts house. How could that be? I don't know. That's a great question. I mean,
if he was a homeless man, maybe it wasn't as easy to follow up with him like it was the other
contractors. In the meantime, Mary Catherine said that she only thought he might be the voice behind
who took Elizabeth. So the police are not really going with what Mary Catherine has to say. And
she's just thinking that he might be that voice. Well, I mean, if you have an epitome, then I don't
know, I feel like they kind of brushed her off a little too quickly. Well, police told Ed not to go
public with this information. Even if it did generate leads, they felt like if they made
Emmanuel public, then of course he's going to flee or at least go underground because remember,
he's been spotted as a trio all over town at this point with two women. So he's freely walking
around and nobody's thinking twice. I mean, they're looking at this odd trio and how they consider
people should be dressed. Well, anything going on the news at that point, then that might scare him
off. The smart family, however, didn't really like that idea that the police had asked them not to
go public. Beth, again, this seems to be a trend because just in our last episode, the police told
the family not to go public. Exactly. Yeah. Well, guess what? They did. Just like our last story,
the smarts went public because they were not comfortable with the police's demeanor and
decided that they were going to in their way, they decided that they were going to pursue this street
preacher on their own. And that's pretty much where we're going to end this, Beth. I'm very
anxious to hear the continuation. There is a lot of information going on in this case. I just
really felt like I needed to give it justice. I wanted to talk first about the smart family
and what they were going through in the first several months of Elizabeth's disappearance,
because next week we're actually going to dig a little bit further into that man named Emmanuel.
I'm very intrigued and I'm going to be very interested to hear all about this Emmanuel.
Was that a good stopping point? Yeah. You know what? I think it's because I didn't read this
ahead of time. I was very intrigued. I mean, I'm always intrigued, but everything became as a
surprise to me because it's been so many years. Okay. So this was a good one. Good. Hey, teachable
moment. Okay. Go ahead and ask me. So Deb, what's our teachable moment for this week?
Okay. Teachable moment. You know, regardless on how old we are, Beth, we all have our own memories.
I think that we just need to give kids a little bit more credit than what we do. Always that when
we were growing up, we always had that be seen and not heard. Well, in today's age, especially with
the storylines that we talk about every week, Beth, I think it's pretty important that we do listen to
the children. We do need to take the information when a child has enough courage to approach an
adult with any type of information, especially this type. You know, we are trusted adults. We
teach our kids to trust adults. So we need to respect the fact that they're taking the courage
to come forward. Yes. I think that children should be understood and listened to more than they are.
Absolutely. So I think that's my teachable moment for the week is that we need to let the voices be
heard. Okay. Well, with that being said, thanks for listening to our podcast Dying to be Found.
And before we go, we would love for you to leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. Beth and
I are trying to deliver you the stories that we believe that you can relate to. So if you like
our show, consider buying us a coffee at buymeacoffee.com slash dying to be found spelled just like you see it on
our logo and feel free to leave a comment on that page so that we know what we can do better. And
also be sure to follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest at dying the number two,
the letter B found, and we will talk to you next Thursday. And that's a wrap. That is a wrap. Toodaloo.
Toodaloo. I'm leaving that in just so you know, because that was so freaking cute.